The Calligrapher

by Edward Docx

  You think I read too much into our little garden rencontre? Why then, oh sceptical jury, did Miss Madeleine Belmont skip so sweetly up the steps of number thirty-three Bristol Gardens and buzz the buzzer of Flat six, the residence of Jasper Jackson, calligrapher and gentleman, the very next day?

  Suspecting telecom salesmen or worse (and fully expecting to be out), I entered my bedroom, tea in hand, and softly slid up the window. From above, I could see only the tangle of blonde. But there was no doubt. It was she all right: standing by the intercom and waiting for me as though there could be nothing more natural in all the world for a girl to be doing on a Wednesday morning than delivering a man an umbrella. I pulled my head in quickly and drained my cup. The water coughed in the pipes.

  The best thing about a good trick is that as long as you keep changing your audience, you can do it as many times as you like. I went into the hall and picked up the entryphone.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi, it’s me,’ came the voice, ‘I was on my way out and I’ve … brought your umbrella round.’

  ‘Oh, it’s you. Hi. Er … hang on a second – I’ll come down – I’m afraid the lock’s broken and I can’t open the door from up here.’

  A swift but contemplative moment to dismiss the idea of taking a quill with me – held casually in the hand as though mid-sonnet (which was not, after all, that far from the truth)– and down I went. I opened the door and smiled my warmest smile – a Tuscan sun shimmering across a valley of ripening vines that whisper to one another of forthcoming Montepulciano. Or so I like to think.

  ‘Hey thanks … I’m sorry I don’t know your name,’ I lied, taking the umbrella.

  ‘Madeleine,’ she said.

  ‘Right, well, thanks … Madeleine.’ I offered her a light-hearted hand to shake, which she took with faint amusement. ‘I hope you didn’t make a special journey.’ I was standing with my heel against the open door behind me.

  ‘No, I’m just around the other side – on Blomfield Road – and I was on my way over to buy some stuff for lunch from the grocery store, so it’s kind of on the way.’

  ‘From Roy’s?’ I grinned.

  ‘Roy’s?’

  ‘Oh, he’s the guy who owns the shop over there – fat guy with a Charlie Chaplin moustache. You must have seen him. He’ll get you anything you want if you give him enough time. But watch him on the prices – he does these weird economic experiments on his regulars.’

  She nodded. ‘Right. I only just moved in – more or less. And I’m still getting to know the locals.’

  Curiously, there was an anticipatory quality to her voice – as though she had thrown a conversational bone. I stalled slightly. My instincts twitched. I just couldn’t believe that this was going to be so facile as a let-me-show-you-around operation? Not possible. Not with a woman like her. Too easy. Acting on some unconscious principle of distrust, I stepped around the opportunity. ‘Right. Well, it’s a great part of London – sort of immune from the usual classification of inhabitants syndrome.’

  She frowned for a second then the corners of her mouth rose. ‘That’s pretty much the only reason I chose it.’

  ‘Ah … now you see, that is the problem,’ I said, deliberately taking her at face value. ‘More and more people are choosing to live in the Warwick Avenue environs because they see it as a haven for the type of person who can’t face the possibility that they might be a type of person.’

  ‘Mmm.’ She narrowed her eyes slightly. ‘I hadn’t realized.’

  I was aware that I was talking even more crap than usual. But all of a sudden, I had become convinced that she was expecting me to ask her out – then and there – and that (worse) she was actually deriving some private amusement from betting with herself how long it would be before I (the Typically Pedestrian Male) would think it appropriate to drop the line. (Not that I was certain she would say yes. Quite the reverse: I feared she might be quietly looking forward to saying no.) But I wasn’t going to oblige her so easily. Above all else, I was determined to take no risks until I knew intimately the lie of the relationship hinterland. Instead, rather than chance so early a refusal, I decided that I would have to be vague – fudge the invitation, make it clear but nonspecific.

  ‘Anyway, I guess I’d better get back to the grindstone.’ I moved back half a step.

  ‘Sure.’ If she was surprised, she did not betray it.

  I nodded. ‘Well – if you’re ever at a loose end, I’m usually at Danilo’s most lunchtimes, so drop by if you feel like it.’

  ‘OK, I will.’ She smiled. She was already down the steps and on the pavement.

  I closed the door in the manner of one who has already forgotten his visitor and is much preoccupied with urgent business within.

  Not great. A bit stilted. Not exactly cool. Could have done better. A little out of sorts. And for the first time in a long time: nervous. All of this I concede … But on the positive side there was an affirmative ring to that ‘OK, I will’ of hers. So not to worry, I reflected, over an uncharacteristically early gin sling, I had made the right decision – a matter of instinct.

  Why not jump straight in? You may well ask. Because … because I felt it far too risky. As Donne says: ‘… this / As yet my ease, and comfort is / Though I speed not, I cannot miss.’ No doubt the well-meaning amateur (egged on by that canting old harlot otherwise known as conventional wisdom) may feel that honesty is the best policy. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, he muses to himself as he decisively switches off the television; faint heart never won fair maiden. If she says ‘yes’, all well and good, take it from there; if she says ‘no’, then nothing was ever going to happen anyway, so nothing has been lost. But such a thin and binary world is sadly denied the professional. Once you cannot live with the outcome ‘no’, once you accept the burden of believing that ‘yes’ is always possible if only the question is well crafted and well timed, once you care about the seducee, then the premature rebuke has to be avoided at all costs. Instead, you must minimize the danger by moving with meticulous attention until you have understood both her situation and her sensibilities well enough to frame your appeal in such a way that she will find churlish to resist. A woman with a steady boyfriend, for example, will usually baulk at a straight proposal. But she might well say ‘yes’ to a carefree invitation which, she can tell herself, does not directly threaten or compromise her relationship …

  But Jesus Christ the waiting was tough. Inevitably, ‘most lunchtimes’ now meant ‘every lunchtime’, since I could not afford to miss the one on which she chose to drop by. Carla, with whom I still had my standing arrangement and whom I could have trusted to be my sentinel, had been on holiday (back to beautiful Roma to see her sister) since the heatwave. This left me in the hands of Roberto, who, though never unfriendly or rude, nonetheless served me with the air of someone who wanted everyone to know that he was working two shifts a day. (Aren’t we all, bud?) Two weeks passed. And truth be told, I was feeling neither ‘ease’ nor ‘comfort’. The drawing board loomed.

  On the first Wednesday in May, I had almost decided that enough was enough, that I would have to change my plan. I was seated on the pavement beneath overcast skies, eating yet another salad. (Venus must not come upon me mid-spaghetti or carving into veal.) I was also, I noticed, losing weight – at something like a quarter of a stone a week. Idly, I calculated that Madeleine had only to spurn me for another forty-three or so weeks and I would have entirely disappeared. No great loss to humanity, I recognized, but a bitter blow to me personally.

  Inside, Roberto had his hands full with a group of over-coiffured mothers and their equally demanding infants. I meanwhile tortured myself with boyfriends. The whole ugly question lurked like an incontinent dingo on the high street of my intentions. More than anything else, not knowing this vital piece of information was holding me back, cramping my style. And still no news from Roy. More and more my feeling was that she lived alone. But the fact was, I couldn’t believe – didn’t dare
to – that she did not have some kind of a partner somewhere. Fine if so, and amazing if not, but obviously the two possibilities required entirely different approaches and I could not move forward safely until I knew one way or the fucking other.

  I have explained that I have no problems with boyfriends as a concept. But I should also say that in person, they disgust me. For the most part they are repulsive creatures: lazy, stupid, impatient, incapable of listening, complacent, insensitive, unappreciative, woodenly duplicitous, simpering or smug. Aside from the one or two times a year when they are seized by the sentimental need to ham it up on some God-awful holiday somewhere – doubtless spurred on by a sunset and a bottle of New World méthode champenoise – they spend most of their pallid lives sprawled on their backs snoring or furtively beating off whenever they get time to themselves. In my nightmares I see legions of them, like heavy bum-cracked builders crammed into ill-fitting military uniforms – rank upon rank and file after file of boyfriends, stretching away across the monochrome of a vast parade ground, with their thuggish banners of red and black boredom, their pennants of tenure, their flags of loyalty fluttering in a steely breeze. Meanwhile, Herr Fidelity, that brutish dictator, looks down from the grey castle walls and surveys his rallied power with a functional nod.

  At ten to two there was still no sign of her. I ordered another coffee. Roberto obliged. I watched and I waited. I waited and I watched. The traffic continued to fidget around the Warwick Road roundabout. I couldn’t do this for another week. It was ridiculous. I flipped up my paper. For one thing, I was reading too many soul-stripping reports on what passes for contemporary British politics. (A never-ending performance given by a sixth-form cover band who can’t really play but employ a wide repertoire of jejune guitar poses in a desperate effort to distract from their deficiencies.) I turned the page. I learned about the world’s most obese man, who had been craned out of his bedroom so that he could appear on television. His wife – yes, his wife – said that she wanted to present her own cookery show. I looked up: a dun-grey day, the sky the colour of the newsprint and smirched and grubby too. An errant seagull settled heavily on a television aerial.

  ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Can I get you a coffee or do you need to get back to the grindstone?’

  This time it was I who was caught by surprise.

  ‘No, not at all,’ I said, recovering fast and cheerily ignoring both the mischievous note of sarcasm and the close fit of her hipster jeans, ‘I don’t usually go back to work until … er … two-thirty. Yeah, please: have a seat.’ I stood and pulled out a chair. ‘I’ll go and see if I can find Roberto … er … he’s the waiter. What would you like? What can I get you?’

  ‘Espresso.’ She smiled, put down her bags and began to sit down.

  ‘OK. Hang on a sec.’

  We were back in business! At long last. Out of nowhere. And there was no way of avoiding it: she was intravenously sexy. As quietly as they had appeared, my anxieties now vanished and my mind drew itself up to its full height. An inexcusable delay … but she had kept her word. Something was going on. Unless she was being nice. But who is nice these days? What’s nice? Who the fuck has time for nice?

  Inside, poor Roberto was busy servicing the mother and baby workshop – lots of screaming, spoon-feeding, dropped toys and women showing off to one another over the racket and the mess. (Come on, ladies, give us all a break: you’re not the first women on planet Earth to have children.) I caught his eye and pointed towards the coffee machine. He frowned, then guessed what I was after and nodded his head very slightly before turning his attention back to the lucrative world of cutchy-coo. I locked in a fresh barrel of coffee then hastily heated the thick little cups under the milk steamer to bring them to an acceptable temperature. I needed information. But above all, I told myself, my single duty was to secure another meeting. And this time it must have a date and a time attached. A date.

  ‘Here you go,’ I said.

  ‘Thanks.’

  I sat down, blocked her beauty from registering in my consciousness, forced myself to relax and ran a quick mental scan for something natural and straightforward.

  ‘So,’ I began, ‘what have you been up to this morning?’

  ‘Oh, nothing much. Actually, I have just been to a bathroom store on the Edgware Road to price up stuff for when my builders have finished. It’s all a bit of a nightmare at the moment.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘I just want to – you know – get it over. But there’s so much needs fixing up.’ There was a very slight twang to her accent, hardly discernible and I couldn’t place it.

  ‘How long do you think it will take?’

  ‘I don’t know. I figure it will be at least another couple of months before the major stuff is done and then I want to paint it and all that. And the frame of the patio door is rotten too – or so the builders say. So that may have to get done. And the kitchen – oh Jesus – I’ve just bought a new kitchen, which has all got to be sorted out and fitted in.’ She took a sip of her coffee. Her shirt was sleeveless and her sun-burnt arms, I saw, were completely bare – no jewellery, no watch and no rings. Definitely no rings. ‘Anyway, it’s boring. How about you?’

  ‘This morning? Oh, I’ve just been working.’

  ‘You work round here?’

  ‘Yes. At home.’

  ‘What do you do?’

  ‘I’m a calligrapher.’

  ‘Really?’ She arched her pretty brow.

  ‘Yes.’ I nodded. ‘Really.’

  ‘How does that work?’

  ‘Well, it’s lots of sitting around and trying not to smudge.’

  She grinned. ‘I had no idea that calligraphers were still going. I thought you guys were kind of finished what with the invention of printing and computers and all of that.’

  ‘No. Far from it. Actually there are thousands of us in England – all over the world in fact – working diligently away at our boards. We’re a thriving community. Mostly amateurs but there are more professionals than you might think. You won’t meet many of us but we’re out there.’

  ‘You do it for a living?’

  ‘Yes. Millionaires commission me to transcribe poetry.’ I was going to add something about agents and exhibitions but, as ever, I was wary of talking too long (and to no purpose) about myself. ‘How about you?’

  ‘You mean what do I do?’ She took out a packet of foreign-looking cigarettes from her bag. ‘I’m a travel writer.’

  ‘Now that sounds more like a life.’

  ‘Very few complaints.’ She lit her cigarette with a match, blinking a little against the acridity as she waved it out.

  I waited, thinking she was going to continue but she sat back and said nothing. So I asked another question: ‘And is it hard getting the jobs or do you get offered work?’

  ‘I’ve been at it for six years now – so it’s a bit easier, I suppose. Sometimes I just go somewhere on a trip – prearranged or not – and then try to sell it. Other times I get rung up and told to do this or that and –’ she shrugged ‘– off I go. You build a name slowly. The work comes in. It’s fun.’

  ‘Sounds pretty good. Wish I could swap.’

  She smiled. ‘Everyone says that. It is one of the best jobs in the world. But there are quite a few drawbacks people don’t realize.’

  ‘Really? I can’t think of any.’

  ‘Well, you know,’ she explained, ‘there’s a lot of research and tramping around or sitting on smelly buses, heading for places which are always shut and miles away from wherever. And then there’s getting the right information out of locals, who don’t speak any language you might know and then double-checking everything and finding out that you’ve been told a load of crap and then starting again. And although you get paid OK by the newspapers, it’s actually pretty hard – physically – to do more than two or three trips in any month, so compared to other freelance work where you can knock out, say, five pieces a week if you want to, you make much less money. Plus it kind of screws up your home
life.’

  ‘Right,’ I nodded, ‘I see what you mean. I hadn’t thought of all that.’ This was interesting territory. I took a sip of my espresso, hoping to distract a little from the probing nature of the question: ‘So you have to be away from home all the time?’

  ‘Used to be a lot.’ She flicked her wrist to deter a wasp from her cup. ‘More or less all the time in fact. But right now I’m starting a sort of sabbatical.’

  I must have looked inquisitive.

  ‘Well, actually …’ – genuine modesty here – ‘I recently sold my first book, so I’m taking a bit of time out and only doing the pieces – the articles – that I want to do, which is how come I took the chance to buy somewhere to live and all that. Plus my old flatmate wanted to get somewhere of her own too, and you know …’ She waved her hand to suggest lots of reasons and then let her eyes find mine for a second. ‘So I’m settling down for a bit anyway. Getting on the real estate ladder. Seems like as good a time as any.’

  It was an American inflection in her voice, I thought. ‘What’s the book about or don’t you want to talk about it?’

  ‘Oh, it’s just this women’s guide to the Middle East kind of thing. Syria and Jordan and Lebanon.’

  ‘Palmyra and Krak des Chevaliers and all that?’

  ‘Mainly, yes … you know Syria?’ There was a whisper of challenge in the question. I felt her hazel eyes on me again – coolly sceptical – and I realized that I would have to be careful with my lies, careful not to underestimate her perceptiveness. ‘I’ve been,’ I said, which was true. ‘Palmyra was the best thing – just stuck out there in the desert and so unfenced off with people clambering all over the ruins if they wanted to.’